


Nimbus

by starstag



Series: Out of an Empty Sky [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Missing Scene, fitzjames/crozier if you want to read it that way?, takes place in ep 8, walking back from victory point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 20:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20020777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstag/pseuds/starstag
Summary: While walking to Victory Point, James realizes that suffering alone maybe isn’t the best option. Continuation of Sirius.





	Nimbus

Shattered china be damned. He’d heard the men compare the barren landscape to porcelain and pottery, but to him the rocks of King William land held a far more sinister comparison. They looked all the world like old bones, breaking beneath his feet. 

He’d seen fresh bone, before. The bones of living things- or rather, recently living. They’d shone under Goodsir’s knives, the bones of a dead seabird. He didn’t remember the species, or the color of the feathers, but the curve of its ribbon-thin intestines stood out, and its fresh bones, peeled free of flesh. They had been shiny, like wet fruit, covered with a pinkish layer of tissue. 

He couldn’t help but feel his own bones were more like the rocks beneath his feet: brittle, breaking, bleached white.

His mind turned to darker thoughts: the weakness dragging at his limbs with every step, the blood on his brow and tongue, the black bruises spreading across his body like overripe fruit.

“James?” His name pulled him from the depths of his thoughts. Francis, some half dozen paces ahead of him, had stopped and was looking back at him with a look of mild concern. “Lost in thought?”  
He nodded and shouldered his rifle to catch up. They fell in step side by side.   
“What about?”   
“A great many things.” It was true enough.  
Francis’s face broke into a smile. “Well, don’t let me keep you silent, James. Speak. I don’t mind at all.” 

To think, Francis Crozier asking him to speak, to tell his stories. It was unexpectedly ridiculous and he found himself laughing aloud before answering.   
“Too many things in this world have made you bitter, and yet this, of all things, is what has made you soft.”  
“Soft?” Francis snorted.   
“Well. You know what I mean.”   
He hummed in response, their footsteps falling into rhythm as they drifted closer.

“If you won’t speak, I suppose I’ll have to.”   
“No, no. Don’t make yourself.” James’s shoulder brushed against his. “In truth, I was remembering a bird I saw, with Goodsir. Before...before Carnivale. A tern, he said. Haven’t seen anything like it since.”

“Do you like birds, James?”   
The question surprised him, both in its wording and the suddenness of it all. He fumbled for an answer.  
“Yes, Francis. I find them fascinating. Not much here to be found in the way of avian specimens. More luck in the Antarctic, or so I’ve heard. You brought back a number of penguins, I recall.”

“Ah yes, the penguin. Odd creatures.” His gaze grew distant, remembering some hazy memory. All memories, save for those of the past three years, seemed distant to James.   
“Not the only bird I was meant to put up with on that voyage, you know.” Francis continued suddenly.   
“What do you mean?”  
“Lady Jane meant to procure a parrot for the Antarctic expedition.”   
James laughed at the thought of Francis arguing with a parrot. “And you didn’t want such a thing, I take it?”  
He chuckled roughly. “Neptune, God bless him, is more than enough.” 

“Where is he?” James pondered. “Haven’t seen him in a few days”.   
“Haven’t a clue.” Francis shrugged. “You should try calling him, he seems far more fond of you than me.”   
“Well, somebody amongst this company has got to be fond of me.”   
Francis gave him a long look and frowned. “James. You’ve grown very...bitter, as of late. Towards yourself.”   
James plastered on a grin. “Well, would prefer my arrogance? The Chinese sniper story?”   
“Maybe I would.” Francis huffed, then said no more, seeming to wait for James to respond. 

He looked to the sky, as if it would help him, as if a white winged tern would swoop out of the heavens with words of comfort, of wisdom. None came, and the sky remained vast and empty and pale, streaked by clouds so bright white they pained him to look at.   
“I haven’t had as much luck with beasts as I have with Neptune, you know.” He ignored Francis’s exasperated groan and pushed forward.   
“You know, there was-”  
“James!” Francis broke in. “Stop avoiding the topic, man.” He had stopped walking and was standing in front of James.   
He tried to look away, but there was nothing to pretend to study except for the blank canvas of the sky or the broken rocks, and even he could not feign interest in that. 

“What topic?” He said hoarsely.   
His expression twisted uncomfortably at that, as if he were trying to save James the trouble.   
“Say it.” He said. “Go on.”   
“You’ve... changed.”   
“We all have.” He made to move past him, but Francis put up a hand to stop him.   
“You’re not well, James. I can see it. I can tell.”   
His shoulder dropped and for a moment he felt like a ship cut loose from its moorings: adrift, abandoned by captain and crew. The ground pulled at him and he sagged forward. A look of intense, genuine concern flashed on Francis’s face.   
“You can tell me, James.” He said softly.   
He nodded, swallowed hard. No more running, he’d been backed into a corner. How must Francis have felt the night Blanky lost his leg? A million times worse, he wagered. What right did he have to bemoan his fate?  
He sucked in a breath, the cold air burning on tender gums.   
“I’ll...just let me find my own way there.” Francis looked curious, but thankfully he only nodded. “I’ll tell you, just let me talk. Please.”

He nodded again, and they resumed walking, feet once again filling the silence with the rhythmic crunch and clatter of the rocks falling, edge on edge.   
“I...didn’t have as much luck with all animals as I did with Neptune, you know.” He started again, and fell headfirst into the telling of the story. The white rocks fell away, and there was only Francis and the bright sky. He could have been at the shore with him, or meandering their way through a field, save for the cold air which he did his best to ignore. 

“It was on the Clio.” Francis rolled his eyes. Their positions came naturally: him as the storyteller, the tale sliding as easily over his tongue as the silky flow of water, and Francis as the audience. His former reluctance was long gone: he watched James the entire time, his gaze calm and interested.   
“There was a cheetah on board, believe it or not.” 

“Really?” Francis interjected and James nearly laughed. Francis, engaged in his story, smiling at last. Here, at the edge of the world, of all places.  
“Yes. Yes.” He nodded. “A whole male cheetah, tawny and spotted all over and about this tall. The poor thing was old, mind you, but a wild beast nonetheless, and he had a fearsome attitude to match his looks.”

“You provoked the thing, didn’t you?” Francis laughed, and this time his smile was true, devoid of most of the worry it had held just moments before.   
“Don’t get ahead!” James gave him a light push. “But yes. You’re right, I suppose. Damned thing leapt on my back.”  
“Left some scars, I’ll wager.”  
James nodded, touched his shoulder lightly, fingers barely brushing the canvas. “Yes.”  
Francis cocked his eyebrows. “Mauled by a wild beast? More impressive than a ‘musketball the size of a cherry.’ So many Navy men have been shot, but who can say they were attacked by a cheetah?”  
James smiled wryly. “The sniper makes for ah… a better story.”  
“A more heroic one, you mean.”  
He managed a rough laugh. “I’ve still got the claw marks, still.” Francis seemed to sense the shift in his mood, as he grew silent and waited for him to continue. It had been a weight off his shoulders when he had told Goodsir, but that was before carnival. And besides, he was now standing besides Francis, not Goodsir, and that made all the difference as well.   
“They...pain me. Often, now. And between that and the. The…” His breath caught before he could finish, cold striking the back of his throat. “Between that and the extensive bruising, I fear they’ll split open. Like my gums.”

Francis stopped so suddenly, James was a step and a half ahead of him before he spoke. “Scurvy, James?” His eyes were wide and his face held so much emotion it scared James. “Good God, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it wouldn’t have made it any better!” He snapped back. “It’s not as if I can change it.”  
“You could have told a doctor!” He shouted back.  
“I did! Goodsir knows, I’m not an idiot.”  
“And yet you didn’t tell me!” It was loud enough that James froze and glanced around as if somebody might have heard, but, he had to hastily remind himself, there were no prying ears.  
“I’m sorry.” Francis mumbled under his breath, taking a step back. “I’m only...concerned.”  
“You’re right.” James sighed. “I didn’t tell you. I suppose I didn’t want you to worry. Or, more accurately, I didn’t want to worry myself.”  
“James.” It wasn’t said with anger, only tender exasperation. “We don’t need to suffer alone.”

He feels lightheaded, unsteady as if balancing high above the world. Squinting into the sunlight.  
It’s an invitation, an offer. A quiet one, but nonetheless. It’s astonishing. He is silent for a moment, staring back at Francis, and the pale white world blurs around him. Francis, beside him, with his exhausted wrinkled face, framed by the dark hat and the dusty coat, is like a beacon. Against every instinct to pull back, to stand tall and smile, self enforced through years of struggling, he feels drawn to Francis like a moth to a lamp. More than Goodsir, he feels like salvation.

The thought feels wrong, and his gaze flickers upward once more. The washed out sky held no answers.  
“James.” The word is spoken more softly than before, and this time the worry is real and heavy around the edges. It drags at him to hear it spoken in such a way, and he can’t find the energy to push Francis away, to escape his concerned gaze. The scurvy has worn away his defenses, rendered him too exhausted to lift his shield of vanity, but maybe, a small part of him thinks, this is not something he needs to shy away from.

“Yes Francis?” It’s small, and short and curtly spoken, but it’s a start.  
He only gave him a small smile, inclines his head slightly, waiting for an answer.  
He sighs. “No, we don’t need to suffer alone.”  
Francis didn’t speak again, but as he continued to walk he glanced at James every now and again, checking on him or waiting for something.  
James, after a moment, began after him, and the silence between them was once again comfortable.

The sky and earth may have been cold and barren and dead, but he has some warmth and life in him yet. The horizon held no answers, only an eternity of silence, but Francis’s smile, if anything, was an offer to fill that silence with stories. He, of course, was content to oblige.


End file.
